Sharon – Page 234 – Sharon Lee, Writer

Sunny on Sunday

Today’s mail — or, possibly, yesterday’s, or indeed, both. . .A lot of people seemed to want to be certain that I knew about this, in any case.

So! The mail brings news of a new SF/F award in town. Twenty-nine years in the making! The Dragon Awards. You can read all about them, here , and also here . Eligible works will have been published/screened/made generally available between April 1, 2015 and July 25, 2016.

In a startling turn of events, this means that both Dragon in Exile and Alliance of Equals are eligible for nomination, in case anyone is thinking in that direction.

The nominating categories are available here.

The Dragon Awards are open to all fans, everywhere. There is no cost to nominate, and you may start your engines now.

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Here at the Confusion Factory, we are completing the proofing of Alliance of Equals. I want to thank everyone who has pitched in with this rather difficult project. I did try to acknowledge each email, but probably managed to miss one or two people. I love you all; I’m just a. . .little harried, and forgetful at the moment.

We are also still hammering away at The Gathering Edge, which is due at Baen before we leave for RavenCon, on April 27. And we’ve got that short story to write and hand in on May 15.

Speaking of cons, Steve and I have tacked another onto the 2016 schedule. We will be at the Rhode Island ComicCon, in November. Including that convention, we will be traveling in books for 44 days this summer and fall, starting with RavenCon.

I’d say that I feel like a rock star, but I remember Janis Ian laughing at me, back a few years, when I was complaining that Steve and I had been on the road for 60 days that year. So, I’ll just say that, for a pair of SF writers, we’ll be traveling a lot this year.

Reminders and a Call for Assistance

This is in the nature of a catch-up and reminder post.

A. Order your signed and/or personalized copy of Alliance of Equals: Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis is now accepting pre-orders for signed and/or personalized copies of Lee and Miller’s 19th Liaden Universe® novel, Alliance of Equals, which will be published in July. There is a deadline for pre-ordering personalized books (where “personalized” means the authors, in addition to their signatures, write something specifically requested by the person buying the book). That deadline is June 1. Here’s your link.

B. Liaden Universe® Store at OffWorld Design: Coffee mugs, denim shirts, t-shirts, polos! New colors and items have been added, just in time for spring! Here’s your link.

C. The eARC of Alliance of Equals is now on sale at Baen.com. Here’s your link.

D. For those who have read Alliance and want to talk about it, there’s a spoiler discussion here.

Author Requests Assistance

Related to Point Number C, above: The page proofs for Alliance of Equals landed here at the Confusion Factory. It is apparent that the original manuscript was, ah, copy-edited with a very light hand. So! If you have the eARC, and notice errors, or things that seem like errors, please drop me a note at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom. I will need chapter, page number and some of the text surrounding the error, so that I can find it. Everyone assisting with this project will be thanked on the Acknowledgements Page in Alliance. This is a matter of some little urgency, since the corrected pages need to be back at Baen Galactic Headquarters on April 12, which means they must leave Maine no later than April 11.

In other news, and in addition to proofing Alliance, Steve and I are still working on The Gathering Edge, which is due realsoonnow, and! we have a short story due on May 15.

We’ll be writer guests of honor at RavenCon, in Williamsburg, Virginia, April 29-May 1, which con kicks off a summer of travel, including attending the Maine Democratic Convention as delegates for our town, the weekend we return from RavenCon; attending BaltiCon as returning guests of honor for their Fiftieth Anniversary Bash; doing a mini-book tour in support of Alliance, and! traveling to Wichita, and Kansas City.

Our full schedule, insofar as it is presently known, can be found here.

Thanks for listening, for reading, and for all that you do. Here, have a picture of Trooper and Belle, ignoring each other.

Reading the page proofs

So, I’m doodling along with the page proofs for Alliance of Equals, which has a nice, long turnaround time of three weeks from time of receipt. For which I am truly grateful, because that gives us time to Pay Really Good Attention to the script and not have to Push On! despite one’s brain hurting, and eyes crossing, because Deadline.

So far (I’ve just finished page 79, or seven chapters, or 22%), it’s been pretty clean, but there have been some really strange copy editing decisions made, which has prompted me to keep the submission copy of Alliance open on the screen, so I can double-check stuff, and put it back the way it ought to be, when needed.

One of the strangest decisions was the treatment of master trader in a situation where Shan is trying to decide from which melant’i he ought to approach a knotty social problem. Ought he to come the father? Or ought he speak as master trader?

The copy editor in the above case decided to put master trader in. . .quotes. Mind you, they didn’t likewise put father in quotes, which would have been just as wrong but at least consistent. But. . .

Shan does not think of himself as “master trader.” Putting master trader in quotes in that particular instance Completely Negates melant’i, as we’ve built it and refined it over 19 novels and lots of short stories. Shan thinks of himself as Shan. Shan has various life roles assigned to him — father, master trader, master pilot, brother, lifemate, thodelm — and so on. These roles, to a Liaden, are real, they are, in a peculiar and important way, living. Liadens are, according to their own culture, not one, but many, and this is codified (as distinct from, say, US culture, where we are many, but we pretend that we’re not).

Having Shan think of the “master trader” in the instance above is so wrong, that I actually felt a little nauseous, seeing it there.

It’s fixed now, but — phew. Close one.

Moving onward now to making some spaghetti sauce — we have fresh tomatoes, we have chopped fresh garlic, we have — wait for it — mushrooms (mmmmm, mushrooms). Man, this is going to be primo spaghetti sauce.

After lunch, it’s back to The Gathering Edge.

How’s your weekend going?

Spoiler Discussion: Alliance of Equals

For those who have read Alliance of Equals and want to talk it over, vent, or celebrate, here’s your space.

Those who have not read Alliance and do not want the story spoilt, DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS TO THIS PAGE.

Thank you all.

Alliance of Equals eARC

The electronic advance reading copy (aka, the one with the (most) mistakes in it) of Alliance of Equals, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the 19th novel-length adventure in the Liaden Universe®!

. . .is now available for sale via download.

Here’s your link

I trust you all know what to do.

On a related note, I’ve got a side bet going with Belle, who doesn’t think we can sell more than 500 copies of the ARC. O, cat of little faith. Sprite, on the other paw, thinks we can earn out the advance on eARC sales. Of course, Sprite’s still a little unclear on the whole Base Ten thing…

Springtime in New England

Yesterday, it was sunny and warm (for values of warm that include 38F/3C and a sharp wind off the harbor), so we got in Kineo and I drove us to Camden, where we walked around downtown, shopped (I bought a pair of earrings! They’re pretty!), and ate a spur-of-the-moment lunch of spinach-and-feta quiche chased with hibiscus-and-ginger iced tea at Zoot, which is, as the name of course implies, a coffee shop.

On our way out from lunch, we met a dog from the local animal shelter, who was being walked by a volunteer. The dog — a very tall beagle-ish looking fellow — was wearing a bright orange dog coat with ADOPT ME on it.

What a great idea! He was getting quite a bit of attention from the various walkers-about-town, which was only to be expected, of course, because he was a very handsome dog who was interested in sharing. For instance, he immediately identified the bag Steve was carrying (containing a piece of pumpkin-orange cake, which we intended for a snack, later in the day) as something that he would be pleased to share. He managed to be interested without being rude, and when it was made clear that Steve was not as interested in sharing as dog was, dog gave it up with good grace.

From Camden, we should have gone home, but we’d got out into the sunshine and were reluctant to go back. So! We went to Belfast, up Route 1, where we visited the justly famous Belfast Co-op. Steve bought sesame crisps. I bought dark chocolate covered cranberries and dark chocolate covered ginger (and I poured them out of their bags into the same jar when we got home, because that’s just how Wild and Crazy I am); Steve bought a piece of bundt cake, and I bought a four-pack of eight-grain bagels.

After the co-op, we should have gone home, but. . .I drove us across the bay, through Searsport and Stockton Springs, and took the left so we wound up in Bangor. From Bangor, we went right, across the river (after almost getting rear-ended by a young lady who was going 40 in a 25-mile zone, around a blind corner, where, immediately on the other side, I was stopped while someone backed out of their parking place), and drove almost into Ellsworth, before taking the right again, on to route 32? 37? to Bucksport, went over the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory, and so back to Belfast and, finally, with the sun going down, to home.

It was a fine day.

Today, it snowed about six inches, big, wet, sloppy flakes that will likely melt tomorrow. It has also been a fine day; writing has been accomplished and several pieces of business are being addressed. But now it’s time to call it a day and have some lunch with my lovely and talented co-conspirator.

Here, have a picture of said co-conspirator, caught as he is about to dart off to take a picture of Camden Harbor.

Windy Nights

Whenever the moon and stars are set,

Whenever the wind is high,

All night long in the dark and wet,

A man goes riding by.

Late in the night when the fires are out,

Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Whenever the trees are crying aloud,

And ships are tossed at sea,

By, on the highway, low and loud,

By at the gallop goes he.

By at the gallop he goes, and then

By he comes back at the gallop again.

— Robert Lewis Stevenson

Oh, Romeo — yeah; you know, I used to have a scene with him

Being a writer is a lot like being a Liaden Scout, in the sense that both involve long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror. The Scouts have it over writers in the mucking about in the mud part; and in general writers have the advantage in felines. But, otherwise, almost exactly the same.

We here at the Cat Farm have just entered a period of High Energy, if not outright terror. Of course, we have a book due on April 15, and into that already charged situation was introduced the page proofs for the mass market edition of Dragon in Exile, with a return deadline (originally) of Monday, March 21, which, because Central Maine and FedEx, would have given us 2.5 days to proof-and-mark-up because the last FedEx pickup of the week is Friday at 4:00 pm. We did negotiate a one-day delivery delay, which gained us the weekend to work, so! Deadline now Tuesday, March 22.

Steve is taking the lead on the page proofs, and I’ll do spot checks after he’s done, so it only seemed fair, when the copy edits for our Alien Artifacts short story, “Shame the Devil,” came in, on the evening of March 15, for me to take them.

We’re still expecting the page proofs for Alliance of Equals to land between now and the hand-in date for The Gathering Edge. That will be a more intense experience than going over the proofs now in hand.

Into the roil of sudden busyness, was tossed the info (like chum to the sharks, says the backbrain. O, backbrain.) that Baen will be destroying the remaining hardcover copies of Duainfey and Longeye still in their warehouse, which is sad, but inevitable, and also! that we should keep a Sharp Eye Out for paper ARCS of Alliance of Equals.

And, I have a call in to my doctor because of this stupid knee injury, which, despite being pampered ridiculously, still doesn’t seem to be healing like it should.

Wheee….

So, anyway, that. We may be just a tad thin on the internet for the next few weeks.

I have a question for my colleagues who read here, based on a tweet I saw this morning, and I’m. . .intrigued and/or baffled.

How many of you count speaking roles in your latest WiP, to make sure you have gender parity? (Full disclosure: It would never have occurred to me to do this. I don’t even count the cats in the story.)

And now — work awaits!

Everybody have a good Wednesday.

Here, have a picture of Sprite atop Mount Page Proofs.

Oops! Today’s blog title brought to you by Dire Straits, “Romeo and Juliet.” Here’s your link.

Books read in 2016

13. Written in Red, Anne Bishop
12. Andy & Don, Daniel de Visé
11. The Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett (read aloud with Steve)
10. Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch
9.   Broken Homes, Ben Aaronovitch
8.   Soul Music, Terry Pratchett (read aloud with Steve)
7.   Whispers Underground, Ben Aaronovitch
6.   Moon Over Soho, Ben Aaronovitch
5.   Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett (read aloud with Steve)
4.   Conflict of Honors, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (e) (re-read)
3.   Mort, Terry Pratchett (read aloud with Steve)
2.   The Sculptor, Scott McCloud
1.   A Short History of a Small Place, T.R. Pearson

In which adulting is hard

So, yesterday was a dead loss, which I mostly spent huddled on the couch, regretting my birth. Man, these are some fun meds. The Crack Coon Cat Nursing Team sprang into action and, around about suppertime, I was feeling closer enough to the thing to actually finish my WorldCon survey, and edit the interview.

Lest you think they’re slackers, the CCCNT also took the night shift; at one point, I woke up to find Sprite draped across my stomach, Belle curled on my shoulder, and Trooper stretched out along the length of me. It must have been cozy, because I went right back to sleep.

This morning, we appear to have reached an accord, whole-body-wise, and! the swelling and redness have definitely diminished. We’re not out of the woods yet (and still six days to go with the meds), but apparently we’ve found the path.

Obviously, there will be no pickleball for me, today. I had held out some idea that I would go to the gym and putz about (gently) with the strength machines, but…I will err on the side of conservatism, stay home, catch up the work I should have done yesterday, and get on with today’s business, most of which can be done from the Comfy Chair.

I do need to call my boss at the hospital, explain the situation, and figure out how we want to handle my Wednesday shift.

. . .and I think that’s all the news from the Cat Farm for the near past. Hope y’all have a good start to your week.